We’ll be meeting from 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 8th. Roy Street Coffee and Tea is located at 700 Broadway East. Limited free parking is available in the lot below. This will be an active, open conversation and all are welcome – please come even if you haven’t had a chance to finish the book!

How did our children end up eating nachos, pizza, and tater tots for lunch? Taking us on an eye-opening journey into the nation’s school kitchens, this superbly researched book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of school food in the United States. Janet Poppendieck explores the deep politics of food provision from multiple perspectives–history, policy, nutrition, environmental sustainability, taste, and more.

Drawing from extensive interviews with officials, workers, students, and activists, she discusses the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs and turns a critical eye on the “competitive foods” sold in cafeterias. How did we get into the absurd situation in which nutritionally regulated meals compete with fast food items and snack foods loaded with sugar, salt, and fat? What is the nutritional profile of the federal meals? How well are they reaching students who need them?

Opening a window onto our culture as a whole, Poppendieck reveals the forces–the financial troubles of schools, the commercialization of childhood, the reliance on market models–that are determining how lunch is served. She concludes with a sweeping vision for change: fresh, healthy food for all children as a regular part of their school day.

“In her extraordinarily well-thought-out, beautifully written, sympathetic, and compelling book, Jan Poppendieck makes clear that Free for All has two meanings: how pressures to reduce the cost of school meals put our children’s health at risk, and how best to solve this problem–universal school meals. Anyone who reads this book will find the present school lunch situation beyond unacceptable. Free for All is a call for action on behalf of America’s school kids, one that we all need to join. I will be using this book in all my classes.”–Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics

THE CHALLENGE: This September 17, you’re invited to take back the ‘value meal’ by getting together with family, friends and neighbors for a slow food meal that costs no more than $5 per person. Cook a meal with family and friends, have a potluck, or find a local event.

WHY: Because slow food shouldn’t have to cost more than fast food. If you know how to cook, then teach others. If you want to learn, this is your chance. Together, we’re sending a message that too many people live in communities where it’s harder to buy fruit than Froot Loops. Everybody should be able to eat fresh, healthy food every day.

The Pacific Northwest has a rich bounty of flora and fauna to offer from land, sky, and sea. Foraging, gleaning, hunting, fishing, crabbing, clamming… not just for the hardcore outdoorsy-crowd anymore. Join us on Thursday, July 28th at 6pm, for an evening with Hank Shaw, author of Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast. Hank will share his adventures in the field and in the kitchen with a talk on wild foods and book signing. Special guest, Chef Robin Leventhal (formerly of Crave & Top Chef), will also be on hand, serving up some delicious appetizers inspired by Hunt, Gather, Cook. Kevin Cedergreen of Cedergreen Cellars, Cole Sisson of Hestia Cellars, Melissa Peterman of Elsom Cellars, and the fine folks from McCrea Cellars will be pouring some fantastic Washington wines.

About Hank Shaw:
Hank Shaw is a New Jersey native who worked as a political reporter for various newspapers for 18 years until becoming a full-time food writer, outdoorsman and cook in 2010. A forager and angler since he could walk, Hank began hunting in 2002 and has never looked back. He hunts or fishes for all the meat he eats at home, and foraged foods form a daily part of his diet. Hank runs the wild foods blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, which has twice been nominated for a James Beard Award. He won the International Association of Culinary Professionals award for Best Blog in 2010 and 2011, and his magazine writing has appeared in Food & Wine, Organic Gardening, Field & Stream, as well as many other publications.

About Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast:
If there is a frontier beyond organic, local, and seasonal, beyond farmers’ markets and sustainably
raised meat, it surely includes hunting, fishing, and foraging your own food. A lifelong angler and forager who became a hunter late in life, Hank Shaw has chronicled his passion for hunting and gathering in his widely read blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, which has developed an avid following among outdoor people and foodies alike. Hank is dedicated to finding a place on the table for the myriad overlooked and underutilized wild foods that are there for the taking if you know how to get them.

In Hunt, Gather, Cook, he shares his experiences both in the field and the kitchen, as well as his extensive knowledge of North America’s edible flora and fauna. With the fresh, clever prose that brings so many readers to his blog, Hank provides a user-friendly, food-oriented introduction to tracking down everything from sassafras to striped bass to snowshoe hares. He then provides innovative ways to prepare wild foods that go far beyond typical campfire cuisine: homemade root beer, cured wild boar loin, boneless tempura shad, Sardinian hare stew, even pasta made with handmade acorn flour.

Join us for an afternoon of habitat restoration at Full Circle Farm led by Stewardship Partners on Saturday, May 28th on the banks of Griffin Creek and the Snoqualmie River. Do your part to save wild salmon by restoring a stretch of water essential to salmon spawning success. It is your choice whether wield a shovel or a camera. All levels of activity and support are welcome. Co-Sponsors for the work party are: Edible Seattle, Full Circle Farm, and Stewardship Partners.

The trail building is from 10am-2pm at Full Circle Farm in Carnation. Please try to arrive promptly at ten or slightly before, as the trail is about 2/3 of a mile from the parking lot, and we have a tractor taking volunteers out on the dot. Feel free to bring friends and family! There will be pastries and donuts, generously donated by Grateful Bread bakery of Seattle, and coffee provided by Starbucks.

A few things to remember:

It is the Pacific NW so dress in layers, bring raingear, gloves and wear sturdy shoes or boots

Bring your own snacks and water

You will be outside and ‘facilities’ may be limited

Come ready to work but be mindful of your own limitations. Please don’t overdo it.

Driving directions from Seattle:

Take 1-90E

Take exit 22 towards Preston/Fall City

Turn left at SE 82nd St

Turn right at SE High Point Way/Preston Fall City Rd SE

Continue to follow Preston Fall City Rd SE

Turn Right at WA-202 E/SE Redmond Fall City Rd/River St

At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit onto WA-203 N/Fall City Carnation Rd SE

Turn left at NE 8th St

Drive to small white house and park in lot

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To read more about wild salmon habitat, check out the story in the May/June edition of Edible Seattle.

Please note that this is a list of places that are nominated by our members and it’s up to you to keep them accountable when you visit, let them know you saw them listed here, ask them good questions, frequent the spots that are endeavoring to hold true to the principles of Slow Food!

We are looking for local restaurants, producers and artisans who truly exemplify the principles of Slow Food and contribute to the quality, authenticity and sustainability of food we eat in the Seattle-area.

GOOD

Taste: creates exemplary experiences at the table

Seasonal: uses fresh products of the season

Communal: shares time, talent and resources in the community

CLEAN

Humane: uses product that has been raised and/or harvested responsibly

Artisan: presents fine food created by their own or the hands of others

FAIR

Awareness: recognizes and educates their guests on the source of the products used

Nominated restaurants should all be located in the Seattle-area and all show commitment to our Slow Food philosophy – after being nominated, we ask the restaurants to describe in their own words – how they strive to demonstrate the three principles of Slow Food – GOOD, CLEAN, and FAIR.

In the spirit of Terra Madre Day, over fifty Slow Food Seattle members and community supporters came together on November 28th for a day-long fish canning workshop called – “Time to Tin a Tuna!” – taught by Jeremy Brown, a Bellingham-based commercial fisherman and longtime proponent of Slow Food.

Though you can find canned albacore tuna at your local food co-ops or fish markets in many communities, this was an opportunity to learn firsthand with someone well-versed in the process and safety considerations of using pressure cookers. At the end of the day, attendees left with both with the pride of supporting a local fisherman and a good stock of Wild Pacific Albacore to last through the long northwest winter. In past years, Jeremy had done these canning days in the coastal town of Port Townsend, Washington with Amy Grondin, a Slow Food Seattle board member and Port Townsend resident. This was the first time collaborating directly with Slow Food Seattle.

Volunteers washed, trimmed, and cut the tuna into chunks for canning.

We were at maximum capacity a matter of days after announcing the event. We were able to use a commercial kitchen space donated by Gourmondo, a local catering company and Jeremy arrived with everything we needed to preserve our own delicious and nutritious, locally caught albacore tuna to see us through until the 2011 albacore fishing season.

The fish was pre-cut into steaks and with the help of a rotating assembly line of volunteers – we cleaned, trimmed, chopped, packed and processed a thousand pounds of albacore in eight hours!

The recipe was an old Breton family recipe Jeremy picked up while in France many years back – simple and delicious for anyone with a pressure canner and access to some great local fish:

Pack tuna cut into about 2-inch chunks into jars along with a pinch of salt (we used kosher salt and 12-ounce jars).

The secret ingredient that adds just the right level of sweetness is a slice of carrot.

Add extra-virgin olive oil about half-way filling the jars, wipe the rims, cover with the lids and process.